Yellowstone 2014

Another year of Yellowstone is in the books!  We weren't able to go up with all of the extended family this year, but all of my siblings were able to be there at the same time and we had a great time.  We drove up Wednesday afternoon last week and pulled into the Canyon campground around 8.  We got our tent all set up and enjoyed our first campfire before turning in for the night.  We were blessed with a pretty warm night that night and Leila slept a whole lot better than I was expecting her to.

On Thursday we got up and going and set off along the Lower Loop.  Our first stop was Dragon's Mouth/Mud Volcano and Sour Lake.  Leila liked being a big girl walking along the boardwalk and always made sure she was holding on to two people's hands (usually Jori and Annie).  She made "scary dragon" noises at Dragon's Mouth (everything is scary to her lately, or at least she says it is even when she isn't scared).  She was a trooper and even made it all the way up to Sour Lake on her own!

Our other big stop for the day was at West Thumb for lunch and the boardwalk.

Leila fell asleep in the car after this so our car just made our way back to camp, taking a few scenic drives along the way.  No bears though!  That night was quite a bit cooler and Leila woke up in the middle of the night and I could tell she just wasn't comfortable.  She doesn't sleep well in bed with anyone though either so it took a while to get her to calm back down.

Friday was time for the Upper Loop.  We stopped for a quick hike to Tower Falls and then decided to drive out into Lamar Valley to see if that's where all of the buffalo were hiding.  It was!  We found big herds of buffalo with lots of babies.  Taylor also talked us into taking a "short" hike up to Trout Lake and since he graciously volunteered to pack Leila, I agreed.  It may have been a short hike, but it was straight up a hill!  Well worth it once we got to the top though.  Such a beautiful little lake, surrounded by rolling green hills dotted with wildflowers.  We walked all the way around the lake before heading back to the cars.

We stopped in Mammoth for "lunch" (at nearly 4pm") before driving the rest of the loop and going back to camp.  It was a quick stop at camp to drop Jason and Leila off while the rest of us set off for an evening hike up Elephant Back.  On our way to the trailhead, we got stopped in a traffic jam for probably half an hour while we waiting for a bunch of bison to cross the road.  This delayed our already late start time even more, but we still managed to make it to the top just as the sun was setting.  

Of course, this meant hiking down in the dark with our phones as flashlights, but thankfully no bears crossed our path and we all made it back to camp safe and sound.  Leila was already sound asleep by the time we made it back to camp so she got to sleep over at Grandma's cabin and slept soundly until almost 9am the next morning!

After a late start the next morning (that's what happens when you eat dinner at 11pm the night before), we decided to drive the Lower Loop again.  We drove out to the Lake Overlook (towards the East Entrance) and were surprised to see the Lake so calm.

The other main stop for the day was at Old Faithful.  Of course we arrived just after it had erupted, so we opted to do our picnic lunch while we waited for the next eruption.  It went off without a hitch and Leila loved watching the water shoot up out of the ground.

 Leila had a hard time patiently waiting, so she kept running off and various people had to go fetch her back...

After the main event, we decided to walk around the boardwalks behind Old Faithful for a bit.  Unfortunately Jason's eyes suddenly became extremely irritated by something.  So I left Leila in the care of my family, and guided Jason back to the car and loaded him up with allergy medication and eye drops.  His eyes cleared up fairly quickly after that but the allergy meds pretty much knocked him out the rest of the night  He fell asleep in the car and once we made it back to camp, he settled down in the tent for the night.

Once the rest of the group made it back to the cars (after watching Beehive Geyser go off), we made our way to Norris where we walked down to Steamboat on the off chance that it would go off just for us.  It didn't.  But we saw a rabbit right off the boardwalk and Leila kept pointing to it and saying "bunny rabbit" at least 50 times before it hopped off.  Of course, then she decided that she too wanted to hop like a rabbit and eventually Taylor had to carry her back to the car.

Sunday morning, we broke up camp and all sort of went our separate ways.  Our car decided to drive the Upper Loop on our way out in hopes of finding at least one bear.  But after JUST missing not one, not two, but THREE bears, we determined a bear sighting wasn't in the cards for us this year and made our way back home.

Yellowstone is truly one of my favorite places and I feel so rejuvenated every time I go there.  Yes, we do a lot of the same things every year, but new memories are made and old ones are re-visited.  And after going there nearly every year of my life, there are plenty of memories to choose from.  I know that getting the WHOLE Larsen clan up there at the same time each year is becoming impossible, but I hope that the tradition lives on for many years to come, even if it does have to be modified/down-sized a bit.

A few other random things/events about this trip:

*Every time Leila saw the campfire she would flap her arms and shout, "Fire!  Fire!" in a British accent.  We blame Peppa Pig.

*Leila now makes a grunting noise when asked what a buffalo says.  She would grunt every time she saw a buffalo and then ask "More buffalo?"

*Leila was still a little shy of Jori's boyfriend Ben at the beginning of the trip.  She would hold everyone's hand but his.  One time, Annie stealthily switched her hand for Ben's and it took Leila a couple minutes to notice, but when she did she dropped his hand immediately.  She warmed up to him by the end of the trip though and when he had to leave early, she kept asking "Where's Ben?"

*Leila decided she liked to "sneak up" on people.  She would do sort of a funny shuffle/skip and say "very, very quiet" in a whisper until she ran up to someone and shouted, "QUIET!"